


An Amber Moment

by fairest



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: A LOT of Angst, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blackmail, F/M, Fake Character Death, Fluff, Future Fic, and a little bit of fluff, small sex scene in chapter one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 01:35:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2048286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairest/pseuds/fairest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity Smoak died five years ago. It makes no sense as to how she can be standing in front of him now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I shouldn't be writing this, but it hasn't left my head so, eh. 
> 
> This story is already finished, I'm just breaking it up because it's long. 
> 
> No warnings for this chapter, except for mentions of blood and a vague sex scene.

Oliver Queen doesn’t know how to feel.

He is still rather stunted emotionally after his return from the island, and the jumble of emotions knotted tightly in his stomach is confusing and nauseating.

Felicity is standing in front of him.

Felicity Smoak, previously thought to be dead ( _Jesus,_ he had identified her remains, or what had been left of them), is standing in front of him. She looks decades older even though it’s only been five years and gone is the shock of bright blonde hair and flashy dresses. Instead, it’s jeans that have seen better days with a t-shirt he’s pretty sure used to be his. Her hair is darker ( _“I dye it, actually”)_ and tangled around her shoulders.

What surprises him the most (while simultaneously causing a long-dead sensation of protective fury) is the vivid bruise decorating her cheek, swelling enough that he can see it clearly even from this distance. It’s almost black with deep purples and only the faintest hints of yellow around the edges.

She’s eyeing him with a new look of wariness, and with a start he realizes that he’s been staring at her and systematically cataloging all of the changes while drinking in her appearance like a starved man. In the next second, his bow clatters to the ground and he’s pulling her into a desperate hug. She stiffens for a moment before relaxing and her arms raise to clutch at him just as tightly. He can feel lithe muscles where there used to be just soft curves and he wonders distantly what exactly his girl Wednesday has been involved in to have caused so many changes.

“Oliver,” she sighs his name like a prayer and says no more, sinking into his embrace as if it was the first friendly touch she has had in years.

She smells like dirt and sweat, which is yet another difference from five years ago, and he adds it to his growing mental list. “Jesus Felicity, I thought you were dead. We all did,” he finally manages to spit out words, obvious as they were. She stiffens in his arms once more and pulls away slowly, as if it takes everything in her to do so. He searches her face (closed, where it used to be painfully open) and she avoids his gaze.

“I-I know,” she tells him reluctantly, looking down and to his right. “I arranged it so you would.”

He frowns. Irritation sparks hot through his veins. “Why?” Even he realizes that his tone is petulant as a spoiled child. “If you wanted out, you could’ve just said so. You didn’t have to  _fake your death._ ”

She flinches and he softens his tone. “I would have helped you, Felicity.”

“I didn’t need your help,” she replies edgily, suddenly cagey where she had previously been only tense. She backs up another step and folds her arms, an undeniably defensive move. “But I do now.”

“What do you need?” Oliver asks instantly, already turning and reaching for his dropped bow. A look of surprise flickers across her face as if she hadn’t actually expected him to agree to help and a small smile curves her unpainted lips.

“Nobody needs to be beaten up,” she tells him and he relaxes marginally. “I just need a place to hide. I, er, still seem to have a knack for getting caught and I made the wrong guy angry.” Felicity looks momentarily abashed at the admission, a look which made Oliver’s gut swoop unpleasantly.

“And you came to get help from someone who thought you were dead?” Even five years has done little to reduce his natural wariness and skepticism laces his tone liberally.

“I’ve never felt safer with anyone else,” is all she offers guardedly. There is the swooping sensation again. 

Words fail him on how to respond and he pushes it aside to poke at later and instead extends a hand. “You can stay with me,” he says. After a moment, she slides a hand into his with a shy smile and he tightens his grip, reassuring himself that he has not finally cracked and Felicity Smoak is indeed with him in the flesh.

Even as he leads her out of the new Foundry, he can’t help but notice that her hand is still soft, though there are new calluses prominent beneath her palms.  
  


* * *

  
Even with a sizable portion of his fortune having been returned to him, Oliver had never been able to return to his original life of opulence and his apartment is nowhere near the state of the Queen mansion. Regardless, there is a spark of appreciation in Felicity’s gaze as she examines the living room and a warmth settles low in his abdomen. It feels right having her in his space, while normally he avoids having guests over for extended periods.

“You can take my bed,” he tells her as he toes off his shoes.

Felicity shakes her head. “I can take the couch,” she argues. “It’s your home and I will not kick you out of bed.”

“I’ll be fi-” He begins but she presses a thin finger to his lips, hushing him. She shakes her head.

“The couch will be great. Regardless of how uncomfortable it may be, I’ve slept on far worse.” There’s a slight hint of a smile on her lips, though this one is tinged with sadness.

He doesn’t like the look of it on her. She eyes the couch with nothing short of pure longing and he wonders how long it’s been since she’s slept. The shadows under her eyes make him think it’s been a while.

Oliver still prefers the idea of her in his bed (safe and comfortable) but he agrees reluctantly. “There’s not a lot of food but you can eat it. There’s just my stuff in the shower, but as long as you don’t mind smelling like a guy, you can shower.”

Another flicker of a smile, though this one is more tinged with half-hearted teasing. “Are you trying to tell me I smell, Oliver Queen?”

This almost hint of the Felicity he remembers thrills him more it should. “Kind of, yeah.”

She laughs briefly and brushes past him for the bath room. He never gave her the tour, but knowing her, she probably knew the floor plan of his apartment before he had even purchased it.

He ducks into his closet to change into clean clothes and tosses his sweaty ones into the hamper before grabbing new ones for Felicity. He can already hear the shower halfway down the hall and when he cracks the door to drop the clothes off, he is hit with a wall of steam. He retreats despite his strong desire to take her filthy clothes from the floor and burn them to keep her here and safe and without that sad look on her face.

He has only seen that look a few times and he already hates it.

 

* * *

 

Oliver starts awake the instant the door to his bedroom creaks open, though he relaxes once he realizes it’s Felicity standing at the door and dimly illuminated. Through half-veiled, blurry eyes, he watches as she climbs into his bed. “F’lic’ty?” He murmurs, half confused and half asleep. She ‘shh’s him and his eyes flutter closed almost involuntarily.

They immediately fly open when Felicity straddles him. His hands instinctively grip onto soft warm flesh and in the dim moonlight, he struggles to focus on her. This is so unlike the Felicity he remembers; he doesn’t even know how to begin to handle this.  It takes another moment for his sleep-fuzzed brain to realize that she had only donned the shirt he had loaned her and not the sweatpants, which meant he was gripping onto Felicity’s toned thigh.

Jesus Christ, he had to have finally lost his mind from grief.

“I thought about you every day,” Felicity mentions quietly, the words taking a moment to sink in fully. “I was allowed to check up on you on occasion but nothing more than a cursory check.” Oliver swallows thickly and attempts to think of something intelligent to say.

“Felicity-” He begins, even though he has no idea what he’s going to say next.

She kisses him.

Even though it’s been so long since he had done this, his body still remembered what to do even if he didn’t and his hands slid up her thighs to cup her hips (and holy  _fuck_ she wasn’t wearing anything underneath, just more warm bare skin). He tilts his head slightly and deepens the kiss.

Everything fades away into a warm haze and a blur of hot, almost feverish, skin and a song of murmured sighs and moans. He tries to find his tongue, to tell her everything, that he loves her still and has always loved her and ached for her every day she was gone, but she kisses him and rolls her hips and everything slides away again.

 

* * *

 

When he wakes, she is gone and there’s a neat pile of his borrowed clothing on his dresser and no note.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've already seen this before, it's because I'm just moving it over from my tumblr. :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity reappears again, and secrets are discovered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to get this finished as soon as possible, so I'm uploading the chapters pretty quickly. :)
> 
> Thanks for all the comments and kudos, guys! Means a lot. 
> 
> I'm still not 100% satisfied with this chapter, but I'm done messing with it. 
> 
> No triggers except for some blood.
> 
> There are more spoiler-fied notes at the bottom.

Six months go by with no more signs of Felicity, and he has begun to convince himself that it was some sort of deluded dream brought on by an extremely belated case of grief.

He has only mentioned her reappearance once, to Diggle, which had not gone well. He hasn’t mentioned her again and instead keeps the vague memories of that night close to him, shielded behind heavy walls. He realizes vaguely that he has begun to earn himself concerned looks from his now only partner but can’t bring himself to care. He still keeps his city as safe as he can, with the help of his now former protégé who has gone off on his own and left him too.

He expected to feel more when she inevitably turns up again, the blood painting her as vivid as her hair this time. There’s only a vague sense of relief.

Ignoring the not-so-quiet “Holy shit” coming from Diggle at his side, Oliver yanks his hood off and moves to her side. He takes her elbow and edges her into the rolling chair that sits in front of their new computer system (which is nowhere as sophisticated as the one she had built but gets the job done). She looks woozy and blinks repeatedly as she attempts to focus on him.

Concussion this time, he realizes dimly. And blood loss.

Diggle continues to stand to the entrance of the new Foundry, dumbstruck and speechless. Felicity’s gaze slides to settle on him. A timid smile splits her lower lip and it oozes fresh blood. “Hey, Digg,” she says simply. The greeting is enough to snap Diggle out of his funk and he automatically moves to embrace her before hesitating.

Oliver immediately knows that it’s because, like him, Diggle isn’t sure where the blood is coming from and is hesitant to do anything to cause their (former) tech girl more pain.

The threat of more pain doesn’t seem to bother Felicity as she stands slowly (Oliver finds his hand at the small of her back without even realizing) and she moves forward to almost fall into a hug with him. She looks fragile against Diggle’s bulk.

John sighs into her red hair and meets Oliver’s gaze over her head. “Jesus, girl. I thought he had finally cracked when he told me you were alive.”

She shakes her head slightly. “If he has, it’s not because of me.” Her tone strives for teasing and falls somewhere into exhaustion instead

A moment goes by and she pulls back. “Can I use your computer? Mine was blown up.” She asks Oliver, tone eerily reminiscent of the tone she had used to boss him around in the original Foundry.

He gestured at the screen. “You don’t even have to ask.” He’s graced with another smile (god, he’s missed those) and she sits down in the rolling chair and her face almost immediately adorably crinkles.

“Your system is really out of date,” she says. “I’ll fix that for you after this.” Her fingers move almost faster than he can see on the keyboard and she draws up and closes out of windows before he can even begin to read it. He can tell that she has become completely enveloped in whatever it is she’s doing and Diggle takes the opportunity to edge over to him.

“Is it me, or is she…different?” He murmurs, voice pitched low to keep Felicity from overhearing. Oliver thinks back to that night and remembers feeling the raised lines of scarred tissue under his fingertips and the taste of blood on his tongue.

“Yes,” he says. “She is.”

Oliver moves to wet a rag so he can wipe off the blood she seems to have forgotten about and check for injuries. Remembering how she always liked pulling her hair back when on the computer, he manages to find a rubber band that she could probably use and places it on desk beside her. She wordlessly tilts her head when he offers the rag, giving permission where he wasn’t entirely sure he had asked for some. Gingerly, he starts wiping off blood. He eventually sees that she has many smaller wounds rather than a few big ones like he had feared.

A lot of them would still scar though, he knew.

He moves up her arm with the intention of cleaning off her neck but as soon as he gets near she freezes with her shoulder hiking up to her chin defensively. Wisely, he moves on and she relaxes incrementally. Shadows even more prominent than her last visit are revealed under her eyes along with a yellowing bruise along her jaw. The blood is wiped from her skin and she is left looking exhausted and pale.

He has the feeling that she gets about as much sleep as he does.

The desire to secret her away to somewhere safe grows stronger as he sees the way tension begins to mount in the lines of her body the longer he stays slightly behind her. A glance behind him tells him that Diggle has noticed it also.

“So, Felicity,” Digg begins with a tone of forced casualness. He is asking the questions that Oliver can’t bring himself to ask. “Where have you been these last five years?” The steady clacking noises of the keys stop as she freezes. Irrationally, Oliver fears for a moment that she has stopped breathing as well.

“Here and there,” she finally answers warily. Another non-answer. He hates those.

“And is ‘here and there’ military?” Diggle asks calmly, perceptive as always. Oliver hates the idea of it. She is silent for the longest time.

“…No,” she finally answers reluctantly, as if the answer is forbidden in some way. Oliver can see the exact moment she clams up and realizes they won’t get any more out of her. Diggle can obviously see it too as he stops with the questioning. Concern practically ripples off of him.

Felicity stays still for a moment as if expecting more questions and once she sees that there are no more, she continues clicking away on the laptop. After a moment she reaches for the rubber band and moves to tie her back only to stop part way through and yanks it out again before tossing it away. Oliver is given a brief flash of the nape of her neck.

It’s enough.

He snags her hand with one of his and moves to lift her hair with another. All he’s able to get a another brief flash of a precise scar at the base of her neck before Felicity  _launches_ herself out of his admittedly loose grasp and is standing several feet away before he can blink. Her posture is undeniably defensive and she looks ready to either attack or flee. Both are terrifying prospects. Oliver lifts his hands placatingly and out of the corner of his eyes he sees Diggle shift to block the way to exit.

Unlike the other scars he remembers, the one on her neck is precise and even, barely there. A surgeon’s signature.

“Felicity, why did you fake your death five years ago?” Oliver asks with more calmness than he’s feeling. Her face twists up, conflicted. He sees her eyes the more direct route to the Foundry, which would involve going through Diggle.

“Oliver,” she says pleadingly. With a start, he realizes that this is the first time she has said his name since she appeared in the Foundry.

“Why do you have a surgical scar on the back of your neck?” He persists, refusing to be swayed by the bambi eyes this time. Diggle’s head snaps up and he looks at him.

The panicked look increases and she tenses even more. He can almost see the cogs turning in her brilliant mind as she scans for possible escape routes. “Oliver, don’t.”

“Why are you showing up bloody and exhausted?” His tone is more insistent this time. The lack of answers is getting to him.

“Seriously, Oliver.” She almost begs.

“Felicity, answer me,” he all but demands.

“No!” She snaps back, twisting around to slap her hand over the keyboard. Oliver realizes too late what her plan was as the Foundry collapses into pitch blackness. Not even the backup lights came on as they were supposed to. He snarls under his breath.

He’s not surprised to see her gone once the lights turn back on almost a minute later. He expects to see the same indignation he feels reflected on Diggle’s face when he turns to him but instead all he sees is resignation. There’s the distinct feeling he’s missing something. “What.”

“I know where she’s been,” John says. “Oliver, she’s with A.R.G.U.S.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretending Oliver has no idea about A.R.G.U.S putting explosives in the spinal columns of the Suicide Squad, though Diggle obviously does. 
> 
> I also figure they put the explosives in the spine via the neck, just due to ease.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity comes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it, guys. The final chapter. Thanks for reading and leaving kudos and everything, it means a lot to me. :)
> 
> No major triggers, except for some blood, mentions of violence, a lot of angst, and a bit of fluff. 
> 
> This one is also the longest piece.

More months pass with no sign of Felicity, and he fears that they have scared her off for good. Or that she has been killed. He refuses to even dwell on that option.

They had attempted to get in contact with Amanda to see if she could tell them anything about Felicity having been recruited into the Squad (which should be  _impossible_ , she isn’t a felon, she’s Felicity Smoak, MIT class of ’09), only to have been blocked at every pass. Lyla, too, has been useless as to why Felicity would have been there. All she could admit was that Amanda had been interested in his girl after they had crashed A.R.G.U.S headquarters.

They had all but given up hope on finding her, short of rampaging into A.R.G.U.S which Waller had already made explicitly clear wouldn’t be tolerated again or ever. The inability to find the girl he had long ago sworn to protect burned in his veins, eating up his every thought.

He was already exhausted from a long night of beating up criminals and am even longer week of almost no sleep when he stumbles into his apartment but that doesn’t make his reflexes any slower as he yanks a dagger out from where it’s hidden on him in one second and points it at the shadowy figure slumped on his couch the next.

The figure doesn’t move. “Oliver.” The voice is nothing more than a whisper but still achingly familiar. In the next instant, the lights are on and he falls to his knees in front of a battered Felicity Smoak. The dagger lies forgotten on the floor.

She looks worse than she had in either of their previous meetings, and he can see several wounds that require stitching without even searching. The worst was half hidden under her fingers and soaked her hand up to her wrist. Her blonde is blonde this time, though it’s the wrong shade, but blood soaks almost every strand. She can only look at him through one eye as the other is completely swollen shut. She is utterly drenched in her blood and fear clenches his stomach tight.

His fingers find her pulse beneath the layer of blood ( _her blood, oh god, it’s so red_ ) and it’s weak and fluttery beneath his fingertips. She is barely conscious but that doesn’t stop her from offering up a weak smile. Oliver finds himself terrified.

“What happened, Felicity?” He attempts to keep the fear out of his voice and stay calm but he doesn’t think he succeeded very well. The smile vanishes and she is left looking remorseful.

“Got ambushed,” she tells him simply. “A couple of them had knives.” She is as tight lipped as ever, he notes as he gets up to fetch his emergency first aid kit. “I’m not good at fighting. I still prefer my computers.”

“Why does Waller send you out into the field?” He figures it’s a long shot but he still wants to try and get more answers. He hates the fact that he can’t just go and put the fear of god into someone until they fess up and give him the information he wants so desperately.

Felicity coughs and he sees that her teeth are stained pink. “Nice try, Oliver,” she says with a wry smile. Her voice is steadily growing fainter from blood loss.

“Can’t blame me for trying,” he murmurs quietly. He leans forward, armed with a threaded needle, but a small hand on his stops him short.

“Oliver, I didn’t come here to be stitched up,” she tells him. “I came to tell you something.”

“You’re not dying,” he all but snarls out, his voice a guttural growl at even the possibility. She blinks, surprised. He’s surprised himself at the unexpected ferocity.

“What? No,” she replies. “I’m going to be coming home.”

Fear is replaced by a surge of hope that he can’t find himself being able to rein in. “What? Is Waller letting you out?”

“Nope,” she says, popping the last syllable. “I’m getting myself out. Well, with some help. It’s not going to be right now, but soon. There’s one more thing I need to do before I’m free.” The mischievous smile she offers him is marred by her bloodied mouth but he finds himself relieved at the smile nonetheless.

“Can we do anything?” He asks instead of blurting out how much he loves (adores, worships,  _wants_ ) her or kissing her, both of which he wants to do so very badly.

“Can I come back and be your IT girl when this is all over?” She asks, a look of timidity on her face. Does she really think he would ever be able to turn her away?

“The spot is just waiting for you,” he assures her and she looks relieved. He holds up the needle after a moment. “Can I stitch you up now?” She grins at him and nods.

 

* * *

 

Sometime after her parts have been stitched whole, Oliver finds himself lying in bed with Felicity in his arms. He normally detests the prolonged invading of his personal space (even Sara had kept her distance), though Felicity is, as always, the exception. Instead of the normal ire he feels when someone lingers too long, he feels nothing but relief that she is safe (for the moment) and as clean as a sponge bath could get her (she’d laughed at him when he turned her back on her: “ _You’ve already seen everything_ ,” she says, “ _No, I haven’t_ ,” he replies).

Once all the blood was wiped away and she was wearing clean clothes ( _his_ clothes,  _his_ ), she had already been nearly asleep and he hadn’t hesitated to carry her in his arms to his bed to sleep.

When he wakes, she is gone and there’s a neat pile of his borrowed clothing and a note.

 _Soon,_ it says.

 

* * *

 

He immediately knows when he sees the email months later that this is what Felicity meant.

It’s a (thankfully decoded) message detailing the existence of a top secret squad headed by one Amanda Waller, also known as Mockingbird, that was made entirely of felons in exchange for a shortened sentence. The email went into great detail with several attached documents proving said existence. There are no photographs but with the amount of detail there is, photos aren’t necessary.

The email has Felicity’s touches all over it, discreet as they are, and he can’t help but feel a moment of pride for the way her skills have clearly evolved. It’s also clearly an email designed to blackmail someone, and he already has an idea as to who. There is, after all, only one person who can give her the freedom she so desperately wants.

 

* * *

 

He goes home after a long night of keeping watch over his city and when he opens the door to his bedroom and sees a mess of blonde hair (the right shade this time) on his pillow, he closes the door and decides to sleep on the couch despite his aches.

He wakes up the next morning with a numb arm and a mouthful of blonde hair. He grins.

 

* * *

 

“Amanda found out about the hacking,” Felicity begins that morning, staring down into the cup of coffee he had made (he still remembered how she liked it: two sugars, no cream). He stops in his attempts to make breakfast before cautiously continuing. He knows how difficult it can be to open up, especially for the first time, and he doesn’t want to put her off.

“The hacking?” He asks tentatively when she doesn’t continue right away. She blinks and looks at him as if she had forgotten he was there.

“Yeah,” she says. “The hacking I did for us. She found out about it and informed me that a lot of what I was doing could be considered a federal crime.” Her tone is carefully blank and he’s having difficulty deciding how she feels about it. His guess is resigned. “She basically threatened to throw me in GuantanamoBay if I didn’t join the squad.”

Fury floods his system and his hand convulses around the handle of the skillet and he has to put it down before he snaps it. The look she gives him lets him know she saw. “It was her idea to fake my death, and I didn’t have a lot of choice. I was originally just supposed to be tech support, that’s what she told me, but that slowly started to change and I found myself going into the field a lot more. Floyd helped me a lot in the beginning, and I bargained with him that if he’d help me get enough proof to black Amanda, he’d get to go free, too.”

His suspicions were confirmed, then. He feels an irrational moment of gratitude towards the assassin for keeping Felicity safe when he couldn’t.

“It took a long time for me to get enough information to provide adequate blackmail material, Amanda is very tight-lipped for stuff like that,” she continues after a moment, focused intently on the plate of eggs he places before her. “That email you got was a copy that I also sent to Amanda, and I informed her that I wanted a full pardon or I would begin to systematically release it to every single senator and news station that I could find. I also made sure she knew that even if she had me killed, the documents would still be released.”

He’s impressed at her clarity even as white hot fury is flooding his system at the idea of Amanda taking her, _stealing_ her, and then having her killed. It would be just like her, though, he has to admit. Any threat will be taken out.

“Where did you get the scars?” He asks after a moment’s silence when it seems like she has ceased reminiscing. Felicity slides her hand closer to her as if to hide the faint scars he could already seen.

“Here and there,” she says. “I think Amanda began to realize that I was a risk so she started to send me out on missions where the expectation of death was high. A couple of them are how I wound up here.” She gives him a fond look at this and Oliver feels an uncharacteristic rush of embarrassment.

Felicity finally takes a bite of the eggs. “These are amazing,” she tells him earnestly. Oliver takes the hint as it is and starts to eat himself. He feels a moment’s remorse for the girl that was dead now. Even if Felicity was still sitting in front of him eating badly scrambled eggs, she would never be the same talkative girl with a chronic foot-in-mouth disease. She couldn’t be after her crucible.

He was still willing to take any form of her she would let him have.

 

* * *

 

“Can I still come back?” She asks later.

“You don’t even have to ask,” he says.

 

* * *

 

He knows that it’s going to take time to adjust once she’s home again, and he’s right. The sweet girl from almost six years ago is gone and there is a battle-scarred woman in the computer chair in her place. There is an unseen kind of efficiency to her work now as she flies through the computer systems in a way she had never quite managed before.

There’s also a new friction between her and anyone who is not him or Digg. The Felicity he remembers has a magnetic pull around her and anyone who came around her couldn’t help but be pulled in her direction. This Felicity now has a matching charge so she repels everyone she comes into contact with. She’s on edge and reacts badly if anyone happens to creep up on her (which he knows personally from when he accidentally startled her on her second day and found himself staring down the barrel of a gun).

She’s also having nightmares and her screams wake him up at the same time as they break his heart. Thankfully, the nightmares seem to be tapering off the longer she goes staying with him though he knows from experience they will never go away completely.

He has to struggle with his own feeling of worthlessness at the thought that his interference took that sweet IT girl out of her safe world and as a result, she’s become just as scarred emotionally as he is. The day he walks into the Foundry shirtless and she takes one look at him only to turn bright red and blurts that he looks better in the light is a turning point for the both of them.

She climbs into his bed every night and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy waking up to her snoring every morning. It’s going to be a long journey, but he’s just thankful for the second opportunity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: in the original Suicide Squad comics, Atom Smasher essentially blackmailed Amanda Waller into giving him a full pardon which led to him quitting the team, which is where I got the idea of Felicity getting free.
> 
> It was originally where Felicity just leaks the existence of the Squad, but then I realized Amanda would just have her killed in retaliation so I scrapped it and rewrote it.
> 
> Also, “Mockingbird” is actually the name for the benefactor of the Secret Six, which is entirely different from the Suicide Squad (though they did cross over once), but Amanda Waller is/was indeed Mockingbird (right now) and I figure in this ‘verse, it’s just a code name she uses at times for anonymity. :)
> 
> I have a few more headcanons for this universe that I might write later, but for now, I'm marking this series as complete.


End file.
